Imagining Germany Imagining Asia: Essays in Asian-German Studies Edited by Veronika Fuechtner and Mary Rhiel (review)

Presenting a welcome example of interdisciplinary and transnational research, this volume brings together a dozen scholarly essays that examine German visions of Asia as reflected in filmic, literary, philosophical, sociological, and anthropological texts. As such, this volume provides insights into an area of recent development in German studies in the United States by offering a wide thematic scope of research and scholarship in the field of Asian-German studies.

In the introduction that outlines the focus of the volume along with concise introductions to each of the contributions, the editors also discuss the current state and potential of Asian-German studies. Among the most valuable aspects of this volume are the critical questions raised by the editors that concern the field’s reluctance to engage with the ever more diverse theoretical shifts that have the potential to reshape the German studies curriculum at both the graduate and undergraduate level within the American academy.

The breadth of the thematic fields investigated is another admirable strength of the volume. The 12 contributions are divided into three thematic sections. The first section, Part I, entitled “Contemporary Challenges to German Borders and Identities,” consists of four essays dealing with filmic and literary narratives of identity and diaspora in various contemporary transnational and transcultural arrangements. These essays attempt to delve into the European representational politics of the East and China in both feature and documentary films (Halle, Shen), narratives of Indonesian-German identity shifts (Slobodian), and depictions of Vietnamese-German immigration (Fachinger). The five contributions in Part II, “Travel and Representation,” apparently assembled based on the genre of travel report, deal with the representation of “other” and “self” in German writings on India, China, and Korea. In addition to a re-reading of Günter Grass in connection to the Indian-German encounters in the age of globalization (Murti), the topics range from German sexologist Magnus Hirsch-feld’s lecture tour in India (Fuechtner) to Elisabeth von Heyking’s and Alfons Paquet’s travel writings on China (Rhiel), from Waldemar Bonsels’s search for a spiritual renewal in India (Myers) to Erwin Baelz’s racism-driven anthropological expeditions in Korea (Hoi-eun Kim). The remaining three essays gathered in Part III of the volume, “Asia Inhabits Germany’s Cultural and Intellectual History,” explore Indian-German and Japanese-German intellectual encounters in German adaptations of Indian philosophical thoughts (Bhatawadekar), the impact of German Indophilia on the construction of German identity (Zhang), and German translations of Genji, a classic Japanese literary work (David D. Kim). Some of these essays touch upon subjects that have so far been rarely investigated in German studies scholarship, despite their relevance to the understanding of how the travel of ideas shapes the perception and the representation of national and cultural identities.

The volume has a few inherent limitations as a collection of articles. Apart from a few small typos, inconsistent treatment of German quotations, and the uneven quality of the contributions in terms of the exposition and cogency of arguments, a minor but debatable issue is that the volume claims to be the “first” collection of essays in Asian-German studies (12, also back-cover blurb), which points to a larger issue in regard to the definition and prospects of Asian-German studies: would an edited volume concerning German perception and representation of one specific Asian country be considered as scholarship of Asian-German studies? For example, since the 1930s, research on Chinese-German transnational and transcultural encounters reflected in literature and the arts has produced abundant scholarly works. One of the latest examples is Deutsch-chinesische Annäherungen. Kultureller Austausch und gegenseitige Wahrnehmungen in der Zwischenkriegszeit (Köln: Böhlau, 2011), edited by Gregor Streim and Pan Lu. As regards research scope, does Asian-German studies not also include all single Asian nation-related “hyphen-German studies” such as Indian-German studies, Chinese-German studies, and Japanese-German...